LIVERPOOL, England (AP) — Jérémy Doku scored a last-gasp equalizer for Manchester City to snatch a 3-3 draw at Everton and throw the Premier League title momentum back to leader Arsenal on Monday.
The draw ended a run of three consecutive wins for City and left it five points behind the London club.
City has a game in hand but the loss at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium meant the title was now Arsenal’s to lose. The Gunners have three games to play.
“It’s painful now,” Doku said. “There’s a lot of games to go, everything can happen. We lost two points today but we will keep on fighting.
“We know that one point can still be important in the end.”
City has four games left and knew it needed a win to keep the pressure on Mikel Arteta’s side. But although it dominated possession in the first half it struggled to create real chances and it wasn’t until the 42nd minute that Doku found space in a crowded penalty box to curl in a peach of a strike and break the deadlock.
Everton, though, came out a different side in the second half and struck three times in 13 minutes.
City defender Marc Guéhi’s short back pass was intercepted by substitute Thierno Barry, who slipped it past an incredulous Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Five minutes later, the City defense was all at sea again as Jake O’Brien rose at the near post to glance home a corner from James Garner.
Barry made it 3-1 in the 81st when a shot deflected into his path, giving him the simplest of finishes.
But just as City fans were beginning to stream out of the stadium, many returned when Erling Haaland stormed forward and clipped his 25th goal of the season over Jordan Pickford.
City threw everything forward and in the seventh minute of stoppage time Doku curled in a sublime strike with almost the last kick of the match.
It was a killer blow to Everton, which is still hopeful of securing a European place. A win would have lifted it within two points of seventh but instead it was 10th, tied on points with Fulham and Chelsea.
“We let ourselves down, we defended the second goal so poorly and that was the main reason (for the draw),” Everton coach David Moyes said.
“But at halftime we’d have taken this result because we were hugely outplayed in the first half. Getting a point against Manchester City’s not a bad result but when you’re 3-1 up, you’re thinking you’re in with a great chance of winning.”
Forest beats Chelsea
Earlier, Chelsea slumped to a sixth straight Premier League defeat and saw its Champions League qualification hopes virtually disappear after losing to Nottingham Forest 3-1.
Taiwo Awoniyi scored two either side of earning a penalty converted by fellow striker Igor Jesus, inspiring a heavily rotated Forest to the brink of safety. Forest was six points above the relegation zone with three rounds left.
Joao Pedro’s overhead kick in second-half stoppage time ended Chelsea’s scoreless run in the league stretching back almost two months but proved to be only a consolation.
On a humiliating day for the London club and interim coach Calum McFarlane, Cole Palmer had a penalty saved in a 14-minute period of first-half stoppage time — required after 18-year-old Chelsea winger Jesse Derry, making his first Premier League start, needed lengthy treatment following a clash of heads with Forest’s Zach Abbott at a corner.
Both had to leave the field, Derry on a stretcher as Stamford Bridge fell quiet and his teammates looked concerned.
Reaching the FA Cup final last week has failed to rouse Chelsea’s players, who were booed by their own fans at halftime and fulltime, amid their dreadful run of form in the league that has plunged the team to ninth place and out of contention for a top-five finish.
Sixth place could yet earn qualification for the Champions League, but only in the specific scenario of Aston Villa — currently in fifth place — finishing in that position and also winning the Europa League. Chelsea is four points behind sixth-placed Bournemouth.
Villa is 1-0 down to Forest after the first leg of Europa League semifinals. The second leg is at Villa Park on Thursday, prompting Forest manager Vitor Pereira to field virtually a second-choice lineup that still had too much for Chelsea.
In-form playmaker Morgan Gibbs-White was one of Forest’s top players starting on the bench. He came on, set up Awoniyi for the third goal in the 52nd minute, and then was forced off with a bandage around his head after a clash of heads with Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sanchez, who also had to be substituted.
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